HOME	Where the World's Views of America Come into Focus

By Luis Javier Garrido

May 13, 2005

Original Artical (Spanish)

After four years of Fox Administration servility toward Washington, Mexico's relations with the United States have reached a low point. But no one in the present government seems to realize the enormity of the difficulties it will leave for the next government.

1. The decision of the U.S. Congress to approve several measures against Mexican immigrants, in particular the construction of a wall along the border near San Diego, first approved by the House of Representatives (May 5) and then by the Senate (May 10), has not been properly dealt with by the Vicente Fox government. The initiative is a sign that Washington's policies in the immediate future will be more and more restrictive. Mexico's government needs to minimize this trend.

2. Washington's decisions over recent years on the matter of migratory policy, in particular the way the issue is discussed in regard to Mexico. The rapidity with which these decisions have been taken show a clear attempt to respond to the strategic interests of the United States. It has therefore been an error to portray these policies as the whim of a small number of U.S. officials or particular interests on the border. This error has made idiots of several members of the Fox government, who have failed to adequately respond with policies that defend the interests of Mexicans.

3. The Anti-immigrant groups that have multiplied in Arizona and California over recent months, from Minutemen to the National Alliance to Ranch Rescue, are not the expression of a small minority of extreme right-wingers, as was the case in the 1930s and 40s when John Steinbeck and John Passos wrote their novels. These groups reflect the feelings of an ample cross-section of Americans.

4. The people of the United States have been immersed in the process of becoming fascistic since the beginning of the 21^st century, due to the fear of losing the "American way of life." This tendency, which has taken hold at the expense of agricultural workers, has been utilized regularly by George W. Bush during 2004 [the election], and has been accompanied by criminal policies that have led to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the restructuring of the global legal order to suit his imperial will -- in complete disregard for the principal of peaceful coexistence between nations or the fundamental rights of so many people.

All the studies and polls of recent months indicate that a clear majority of Americans approve of the actions of the U.S. forces in Asia, and the role that multinational [corporations] have in those conflicts, just as they support a tougher policy toward Mexican migrant workers.

5. The new measures, we must not forget, were approved by almost the entire House of Representatives {435 members} and unanimously by the {U.S.} Senate {100 member}, and stand as an endorsement of most of the population.

6. Despite all this, the Fox government refuses to recognize the ramifications of Washington's policies, and has failed to respond on behalf of Mexico with a policy of State that puts its duties to the nation and to Mexicans before the ambitions of multinational [corporations]. Fox and his Party continue to shield themselves behind rhetoric without interpreting actual events, and without bothering to look after the interests of those they serve. When [Mexican Secretary of State] Derbez sought the post of O.A.S. secretary general in April and needed the support of powerful U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, all Derbez could do was wearily repeat that the use of rubber bullets on the border area [against Mexican migrants] was not directed against the interests of Mexico, and that the decisions of the U.S. Congress were, "an absurdity" (May 11).

7. The Fox government has sought to use foreign policy as a way to satisfy its deprived interests. This was just as true under [former secretary of state] Castaneda as it is with Derbez, in particular but not exclusively in relation to the United States, where service to business interests is fundamental.

8. When Fox put all the weight of the State behind persuading the Vatican to annul Marta Sahagun's [Mexico's first lady – Fox's wife] first marriage, doing violence to the canonical right -- what price did the Mexican government have to pay for that decision?

9. The declarations of Patricia Olamendi [Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs] that that Arnold Schwarzenegger (governor of California) is "a racist type" and "like a fascist" that "does not share the values of North Americans" (May 11) show that she fails to realize that now, there is no avoiding the fact that the official policies of Washington are to blame for these extremist assumptions (and it should be said that Schwarzenegger actively supported Fox in 2000). Olamendi's comments only serve to exempt the Fox government of responsibility for not choosing policies that reduce the flow of migrant workers from the south to the United States. To give, in other words, the only answer possible, which is not to repeat the usual protests, but to make real a true national project: reformulating the economic policies of the State, abandoning neo-liberal dogma and making a priority of the one overriding social issue: that Mexicans should not have to continue leaving the country.

10. The wall or ‘armor', as it has come to be called in the Mexican press, that will rise along the border between Mexico and California is going to be, as far as we know, only 4.5 kilometers long, but its political significance is very big: the wall is a warning, not to a government that is out of touch with reality and has no clear political direction, but to the Mexican people, that understand with ever-greater clarity the urgency of stopping not just a few {migrant workers from heading toward the United Stets}, but of stopping the vast majority.